


Adiaphoron

by SarcasticSargassum



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Banter, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Duelling, F/F, Femslash February 2021, First Kiss, First Meetings, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Humor, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kissing, Meet-Cute, Pre-Canon, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Speculation, Swordfighting, Swordplay, Swords & Sorcery, THATS RIGHT THATS RIGHT LESBIAN SWORDFIGHT, a little bit?, honestly its more meet ugly but like, i got so lost in the gender envy sauce i forgot my roots, im realizing i should write more lesbianism, well one sword, with sword, with swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarcasticSargassum/pseuds/SarcasticSargassum
Summary: The church in the middle of the woods has long since broken down and grown over, though it is only after the old bell cracks and falls dead to the forest floor that its judgement is finally silent. Very little of its original purpose remains within- the great book of scripture on the front altar long since soaked through with rain and snow, ink slowly weeping from the ancient calligraphy, the paint that decorated the walls in once-elegant stories chipped and falling like flower petals to the dusty mats and warped wood below. Really, it is less a place of worship and more four slowly moldering walls, only demarcating its former use with the whisper of a sermon long dead on the winter wind.There is something poetic, Caroline thinks as she picks her way through fallen roofing shingles, in that the use she’s made for this place feels infinitely more holy than any prayer ever uttered under its long-gone roof.AKA: my take on how Caroline and Quanyii might have met.
Relationships: Sir Caroline/Quanyii (Penumbra Podcast)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11
Collections: The Penumbra Podcast Femslash February 2021!





	Adiaphoron

The church in the middle of the woods has long since broken down and grown over, though it is only after the old bell cracks and falls dead to the forest floor that its judgement is finally silent. Very little of its original purpose remains within- the great book of scripture on the front altar long since soaked through with rain and snow, ink slowly weeping from the ancient calligraphy, the paint that decorated the walls in once-elegant stories chipped and falling like flower petals to the dusty mats and warped wood below. Really, it is less a place of worship and more four slowly moldering walls, only demarcating its former use with the whisper of a sermon long dead on the winter wind.

There is something poetic, Caroline thinks as she picks her way through fallen roofing shingles, in that the use she’s made for this place feels infinitely more holy than any prayer ever uttered under its long-gone roof. 

She is sixteen, and like so many sixteen-year-olds, she knows what adults call her behind her back. Her face has known the gentle warmth of Abenanka’s lips behind her father’s forgery and the angry burn of his open palm not even five minutes later, and while she insists she’s not naive enough to call that all the cruelty in the world, it, like every other wound she has accrued, has hardened her. They call her- and so she is- uncouth, a good fighter and a worse student, and she curses as she stumbles over a fallen beam, freezing when the sword at her hip clanks against a fixture and sends a few restless blackbirds scattering for the sky.

It doesn’t matter what people call her. She’s been blocking them out since she first understood what they were saying, letting their unwanted judgements go unheard beneath the loud clash of metal on metal. That is the plan she whispers to herself at night, when her wounds throb and her bottom lip threatens to quiver-  _ beat everyone. Rise to the top. Win and keep winning, and when you’ve won the war, walk away and leave them in shambles. _

Caroline repeats the familiar steps like a mantra, each stanza of her future accompanied by the rough scrape of a whetstone. She checks the sharpness against a thick vine already marred with tens of iterations of the same slash wound, each a little closer to healed, tsks in dissatisfaction, sharpens it further, checks it again. This time, the indigo sap flows easily, and she nods to herself, smirking at the little flicker of pride that sparks within her chest. She has so few chances to indulge it, after all.

The sun embraces her when she moves back into it, marking out the area for today’s practice in bright shapes atop old woven mats. She hesitates for a moment, planning her steps before she takes them- today, an elaboration on a form she knows better than the blood in her own veins. There is silence as she adjusts her stance, old shoes well-worn from running finding a tense stillness for the span of a breath.

Then her arms move, swinging the sword in a flashing arc around her, and the sequence begins.

She is sixteen, and like so many sixteen-year-olds, she does not know who exactly she is yet- but whoever she is never feels stronger than in these moments. Iron and air sing around her, the simplest hymn she has ever heard. If not for the careful emphasis on timing her breaths with their respective movements, she might laugh- this, the heretic's rhythm of her heartbeat in steady counterpoint with her footsteps, is something she would much rather worship than anything else that was once celebrated here.  _ Two steps to the right, duck, sidestep, adjust _ , she hooks one leg a little too close to the other and fumbles, stepping off into the shadows for a moment,  _ start again, you idiot, and get it  _ right _ this time _ .

One more repetition, then another, then another after that one, over and over until she can execute it flawlessly with the same ruthless competence her enemies will see pointed at the hollows of their throats one day. Finally, when her legs ache and her arms burn at the mere thought of another form, she cedes to her body’s demands. She decidedly does not limp over to the waterskin dropped unceremoniously in a basket by the wall, but does slump down amongst the weeds, drinking deeply from the shade-cooled water in between gasping breaths. Gradually, her heartbeat begins to slow, returning itself to the pace she demands for it.

And of course, because the world has never felt like truly letting her rest, that’s when the witch falls from the sky.

Caroline is on her feet immediately, already moving to the middle of the floor with her sword at the ready. The intruder groans, her hair shading her features as she pushes herself up from her face-plant on shaky arms. Caroline tightens her grip on the handle of her blade, feeling the ridges of its material press raw indents into her palm.

“What are you?” she spits, tensing her body into submission before it even has a chance to shake. The trespasser raises her head, finally meeting Caroline’s eyes, and  _ oh. _

Long black hair parts down the middle of her face, flowing around the curve of her cheekbone and the jut of her shoulder like the weeds that grow in the icy darkness of a lake bottom. Freckles spatter the bridge of her nose, darker but somehow glowing with it, like a handful of constellations in the middle of the afternoon. Her eyes light up as they flick face-sword-thighs-torso-sword-face, lips curled indulgently with a kind of calm, lazy satisfaction that’s only rippled by a wince when she moves to get to her feet.

“Don’t you  _ dare, _ ” Caroline snarls, shoving her blade forward until the stranger cedes her efforts to rise and settles back with a sigh. “Where did you come from, and how do I send you back?”

“ _ You _ don’t do anything, cutie.” Her voice, high and petulant, sounds like the first day of spring. “I go where I want, thanks very much. So don’t let your knife get too cozy with my throat now, okay?”

“Don’t tell me what to do, monster.” Caroline’s face flares with heat, and she insists to herself that it’s rage that darkens her cheeks and not… anything else. That might prove to be difficult, though- the girl is still _ looking  _ at her, her eyes glimmering with amusement even as she sprawls in Caroline’s shadow, shifting from emerald green to stormy grey to a shade of orange that sets off some buried evolutionary alert for  _ poison _ in her head and back again. It’s enough to tug her out of her thoughts, reminding her of the rough leather grip growing tacky with sweat against her palm. “I’ll ask once more before I end your sorry soul- what are you?”

Her whole expression lights up when Caroline asks, every imperceptible air about her suddenly slithering to attention. “Something truly unique, I hope! Not a monster, so you can get that nasty look off your face.”

“A witch, then.”

“Yep! My name is Quanyii, though, if you want something to call me other than those mean little nicknames of yours.” The-  _ Quanyii _ winks, actually  _ winks _ when she says that, and Caroline fights the urge to roll her eyes. Then she remembers she doesn’t particularly care whether this witch finds her polite or not, and rolls them with as much disdain as she can muster. 

“I don’t.Why are you here?”

“Aw, someone’s no fun.” Quanyii sits up a little further and Caroline follows the movement with her sword, staring down the length of metal as Quanyii blinks, catlike, up at her. “Well, I  _ was _ looking for ingredients for this pretty, pretty new spell I wanted to try, but then I heard someone rustling around in this old place and decided I’d take a peek! And, well…” She leans forward, heedless of the sharp edge at her throat as her grin widens. “I found something prettier.”

Caroline tries  _ very _ hard not to take the earnest lilt in Quanyii’s voice to heart. She fails miserably, and compensates with what she hopes is a look of haughty disbelief. “Me?”

“What can I say? I can’t turn down a girl with a sword.”

“Even when it’s up against your neck?”

“Oh,  _ especially _ then.”

Caroline can’t help it- she snorts, letting the faintest twinge of a smile into her stony expression. “It’s a good thing you do, because I find it hard to believe you’d be able to do anything about it if you didn’t.”

“So you think I’d just lie here and take whatever you threw at me?” Quanyii somehow manages to sound both offended and incredibly excited by the idea. “I’m hurt.”

“Oh, please. If _ that _ hurts you, it’s no wonder you’re so pathetic.” Caroline scoffs it a little meaner than she meant to, and something in Quanyii’s eyes glints, like the sun off a blade finally being turned towards its target. She sits forward, heedless of the way Caroline trembles the sword away from the delicate flesh of her throat at the last moment, still with that same damnable smirk on her face.

“So  _ mean _ , tall-dark-and-grumpy! And  _ bold _ , too, for someone who wouldn’t last five minutes in a duel against a witch.” 

“Are you implying you could beat me in a swordfight?” Caroline scoffs, her back stiffening in reflexive posturing as she stares coldly down the length of her blade. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m the best swordswoman in the Southern Frosts, and you don’t even have a weapon.”

“Oh, no, I would never! I wouldn’t want to step on your toes, lovely one.” Quanyii's spine draws upwards into a slight arc, stretching languidly with all the slim flexibility of a bamboo stalk in a storm. “No, no, no! I want a  _ fair _ duel. Your sword against my magic- we both get to do what we’re good at, and I get to win without having to strain my poor arms lifting that heavy,  _ heavy _ weapon.” 

“You’re even more naive than I thought if you care about _ fairness _ in a fight,” Caroline retorts, meeting Quanyii’s simpering tones with a flat dismissal.

“Is that a no?”

“It’s a yes, but only if you’re stupid enough to take me up on it.” Caroline shifts back on her heel, just slightly- not even enough to make the bamboo mat under it groan at the new weight being placed upon it, really, but it’s more than enough.

Quanyii’s grin widens, every layer of her sweeping aside for a moment to reveal something dangerous in the murky depths below. Caroline catches a glimpse of fangs too sharp to be human before her body moves ahead of her command, spinning on reflex to block the blow rushing at her from behind. It takes a precious second for her to even comprehend what she’s seeing- Quanyii, lunging at her as her lower half unravels itself from the wisps of mist that now surround them, a golden dagger curved like a falcon’s talon and twice as wickedly sharp flashing at the corners of her vision where she’s parried it at the last second. Quanyii’s eyes widen in shock and she changes tack, lunging to the side to arc her blade into Caroline’s thigh, but it’s already being blocked and batted away. With a flick of her wrist, Caroline sends Quanyii stumbling back. There is a moment of stillness, a fraction of a second where the spaces between their breaths align, and then they clash again.

Caroline is well-trained, but if she thought she fought dirty, Quanyii fights like nature itself has swallowed her whole- sweeping dives like the kites that circle above the bay, creeping-vine holds that Caroline has to thrash her way out of before that unfettered grip gets a chance to tighten, the thick, heady smell of blood and loam and nectar making Caroline’s head spin with every pass. They surge forward, trade blows, back off, surge again, a cycle of short, tense bursts that escape the decaying wood of the few walls left to reverberate into the open sky. Quanyii pulls out a new trick and Caroline counters it, Caroline outmaneuvers Quanyii only to watch her disappear into thin air as her sword strikes down. 

When she reappears, hovering a handbreadth above the floor before descending, Caroline already knows she’s won. She’s worked herself to exhaustion in this church so many times that her presence has engraved itself, both figuratively and literally. Sweat and blood have fallen from her brow and deep into the wood beneath her feet, marking the site of their landing with a signifier of her dedication.

The rather large rock she dropped on a weak floorboard last month was a little more substantial than drops of fluid, but it left its mark all the same. Quanyii’s foot slips into the pothole and Caroline is lunging before she’s even tripped all the way, channeling her entire being into a single fluid movement and stabbing straight forward into Quanyii’s heart.

Then, everything happens too fast and too slow all at once. Caroline, every part of her honed down to the point of her sword, is striking out towards Quanyii, whose balance is off-center and eyes are wide with the closest thing to panic Caroline has seen yet. And then, as quickly as she moved in the first place, she’s stopped in her tracks.

“ _ What the- _ ” Heavy, pointed scales the color of pond scum grip her blade, shaking with the effort of stopping its path forwards.

“Oh! So that one  _ does _ work. I was wondering when they’d get around to it!” Quanyii’s giggle is cut short when Caroline pushes again, focusing all her energy into pushing back. “C-careful now, sweetie, wouldn’t want to-  _ ah _ \- do something reckless, now would you?”

“Caroline,” Caroline pants, gritting her teeth and  _ shoving _ . “In case you’re wondering what name to curse as you wallow in defeat.”

“Caroline,” Quanyii repeats, rolling each syllable along her tongue like the taste of a new wilderness, new and dangerous and every part of it important. Nobody’s ever said her name that way, and for a moment all she wants to do is hear it again.

Then Quanyii vanishes in a twist of fog, letting Caroline stumble forward in her stead. There’s a giggle behind her as her face narrowly avoids a scintillating conversation with the floor, the glissando of it harmonized with an irritated growl and then a  _ very _ satisfying yelp when Caroline flips to sweep Quanyii’s legs out from under her with a well-timed kick.

It’s intoxicating, the way they fight. They’re perfectly matched, every blow and barb given and taken in equal measure. Caroline has heard the myths since before she can remember, tales of two warriors that displeased the gods being turned against each other in eternal combat. When she blocks and parries Quanyii’s next blow, dancing around it with a laugh bubbling up from her throat, she wonders how this could ever be anything like a punishment.

It ends, though, as all good things do- Quanyii makes another misstep, Caroline takes another lunge, and then Quanyii is sprawled out on the floor beneath her, face flushed and hair a tangled mess. They’ve been here before, of course- one trapped and the other victorious, two moves away from an end they didn’t want to reach- but something feels different this time. Maybe it’s the sun, low in the sky by now, golden light beginning to retreat to its home below the horizon. Maybe something even simpler, their natural fatigue or the slow dulling of a blade after a thousand collisions with its mark- but whatever it is, when Caroline pins Quanyii down with a sword to her throat like some strange, oversized butterfly, an air of finality settles over the abandoned church.

“No worming your way out of this one, witch,” Caroline breathes. Quanyii laughs, winded, beneath her, and it is still like nothing she’s ever heard before.

“You caught me.”

She doesn’t know who starts it. They’re so close they can hear each others’ heartbeat, moving through this frozen time in increments and then all at once. All she knows is that Quanyii is a much,  _ much _ better kisser than she anticipated.

Quanyii kisses like a forest fire, a tidal wave, a natural disaster ripping through the both of them and leaving a worlds’ worth of things neither cares about behind. She sweeps Caroline up in it until she can barely think of anything outside, until she doesn’t even register the clatter of her sword as it drops to the ground so she can take Quanyii’s face in her hands properly. It’s overwhelming in the best way possible, rushing over and around her as she stands steady amid the chaos. Quanyii nips at Caroline’s bottom lip and she lets out a sound she will  _ never _ admit to under any circumstance, bearing down until Quanyii cedes on sitting up and lowers them down to the floor. 

They stay there for a while. The sun lowers itself to the horizon, sitting on the edge of the world and waving hello to the rising moon before settling into the darkness below. Stars wink into existence above them one by one, barely visible through the canopy of leaves above them but casting a faint light down all the same. Quanyii breaks from another kiss with a little gasp, her eyes only fluttering open a handful of seconds after she pulls away. Her eyes, glowing the color of the lightning bugs beginning to light themselves around them, flicker around the room and back to Caroline. Then they widen, as if she’s only just realized something, and she giggles.

“What? I refuse to believe it was  _ that _ bad a kiss, given your lack of objection to all the other ones.”

“No, no, sweets, the kisses were great. Just-” Quanyii laughs again, the sound ringing up through the opened ceiling like birdsong. “A little naughty for a place of worship, don’t you think?”

Caroline’s lips quirk at that, at this strange interloper into her life who tastes like honey and venom and kisses like Caroline herself is the antidote. She feels her blood sing with it, not quite a hymn but still imbued with a kind of reverence.

“If the gods are here, let them watch,” she murmurs, brushing a strand of hair from where it’s fallen in Quanyii’s eyes. “I’ve never cared for them much anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> adiaphoron means a tenet or belief on which a theological system is indifferent. i felt it was kind of fitting for them, for some reason.  
> i find it funny that even though i wrote this with younger versions of them in mind, their dynamic didn’t really change- i feel like caroline had to become an adult very quickly, and quanyii’s never quite changed out of that chaotic adolescent whimsy. this was my first time writing both of them and i really hope i got their characterization okay, so if i did or if i really, really, didn’t, please let me know in the comments!  
> there Is actually a second chapter i have half-written for this that i’ll likely post in about a week or so! i just wanted to get this out in Technically February so i had to cut that for time, and also because i finished writing it at 5 am february 28th. no i did not wake up at 5 am. my sleep schedule is horrendous im aware.  
> if you liked this fic i am pspspsing loudly at you to leave a comment and/or kudos, they genuinely light up my soul a lil bit whenever i check my notifications. feel free to check out the rest of my fics as well, the tpp ones are mostly junoverse but hopefully thats up your alley as well!! thank you so much and have a wonderful day/night/whenever you read this!!


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